Re: tar --remove-files chokes on symlinks
On 2011-06-02 04:13 +0200, lrhorer wrote:
> I have a cron script that runs tar on a directory in order to clean it
> up and minimize its size. I run the command:
>
> tar cf Backup_Server.tar.gz --remove-files *
>
> but during the tar process I get the errors:
>
> tar: /RAID/System/Backup/bin: Cannot rmdir: Directory not empty
> tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors
>
> When I look in /RAID/System/Backup/bin, all that is left are a number of
> symlinks. Evidently, tar is unable to delete the symlinks prior to
> attempting the directory delete. If it makes a difference, these
> symlinks actually point to nothing. In any case, how can I get tar to
> delete the links and complete the job?
This is a known bug¹ in tar 1.23. Upgrading to the wheezy version helps,
if that is an option for you.
Sven
¹ http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-tar/2010-03/msg00026.html
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